1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a fire monitoring system for waste bunkers including an infrared camera for the fire monitoring system and a method for fire monitoring.
2. Discussion of the Background
Waste which is intended to be incinerated is stored upstream of a waste incineration plant in a closed space, in a so-called waste bunker. The waste, stored in the form of loose material, can catch fire for various reasons. In a so-called bunker fire, environmentally damaging gases are produced, which represent an exceptional environmental loading in the vicinity of the waste incineration plant. Furthermore, a bunker fire leads to an interruption of operations with corresponding technical, logistical and economic problems. Since bunker fires are occurring ever more often, there is a requirement to combat them effectively.
The effective combating of bunker fires presupposes the early detection and location of warm places, that is to say sources of fire, in the bunker. Such an early detection and location is problematical for various reasons. The visibility in the air space of the bunker is insufficient, since the air is laden with dust and an intense development of smoke precedes the fire. The surface of the mass of waste is not even and distortions of an optical image of this surface result from the higher and lower places and from changes resulting from waste removal, delivery and restocking.
Until now, fire detection was carried out in practice visually by a crane driver who operates a crane for loading and unloading the bunker. This type of fire monitoring is unsatisfactory. Various attempts for improving the current state have therefore been undertaken.
In "From the activities of the LIS 1989" (Essen 1990), under the title: "Possibilities for the early detection of waste bunker fires--Results of trials with thermography systems", U. Euteneuer reports on the use of a thermal imaging camera, with which, however, only a thermal diagram, that is to say a linear temperature image of a very narrow surface fire, could be recorded. However, since in the early detection of bunker fires the exact localization of the source of fire forms one of the essential problems, no suitable solution to the problem could be proposed on the basis of these trials.